Verizon Wireless appears to be preparing for the sudden onslaught of new customers coming to their network for the Verizon iPhone by making it harder and more expensive to upgrade their phones at the end of two years.

Yup. Sadly, Verizon has quietly discontinued their long-running New Every Two promotion, which allowed any customers who successfully completed a two-year contract to either get a free new low-end phone or rack up credit ranging between $30 and $100 to apply to the downpayment of their next phone.

Verizon also changed its early termination policy, which previously allowed people to end their contracts after just 13 months. Now they can only bail after 20 months.

The good news here is that if you’re an existing Verizon customer looking to upgrade to a Verizon iPhone, you’re grandfathered into the New Every Two program… but if you’re fleeing AT&T to Verizon, expect to pay the full downpayment on your next subsidized phone two years down the line.

About the author:

John Brownlee is a Contributing Editor. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.